Thursday, July 21, 2011

Crowcuss were a Winnipeg band with ties to bands like the Guess Who and Mood Jga Jga. Originally, the band included members Greg Leskiw and Bill Wallace who both played with the Guess Who. After Greg left the Guess Who, he formed a band called Mood Jga Jga. Some of the members of that band were recruited by Burton Cummings when he decided to go solo. As a result, Greg scrambled to find musicians to fill the spots in Mood Jga Jga and soon the line up became Crowcuss. Greg would eventually tire of touring and leave this band before they released their debut in 1979. The members were Bill Wallace, Larry Pink, Marc LaFrance, Hermann Fruhm and Bob Deutscher. They released their self titled debut in 1979 and toured the country opening for Burton Cummings and Prism. They would relocate to Vancouver and release one more album in 1980 before calling it quits. It is from this latter album in 1980 entitled, Starting To Show, that this track, Fat City/Everyone Loves A Parade is taken from. Fat City is a song written about being stranded in the Winnipeg airport and not about the 1972 cult classic movie, Fat City, starring Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges. The song ends with an instrumental called, Everyone Loves A Parade. The band picked up a few brass instruments and simulated a marching band for the track. They actually recorded themselves marching through the studio and out in to the parking lot. Following this album, the band broke up. Bill Wallace returned to Winnipeg and would join Greg Leskiw in a band called Kilowatt. A cool label out of Duluth, Minnesota has taken on the task of remastering some of these long lost Canadian tracks. Super Oldies (http://www.superoldies.com/) released a limited pressing of the Crowcuss discography in an anthology format recently. Beyond that, the original albums are very difficult to find today. At the time of this blog, the album, Starting To Show, was trading between $10 and $50 on Ebay and Amazon. You can hear the song, Fat City/Everyone Loves A Parade, on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ9EVe4p-q4). Thanks for reading and enjoy!